Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 2 no. 158
March 15, 1993
 
1) A Yidishe Hagode (Victor Bers)
2) Yiddish Hagodas (Sheldon Benjamin)
3) Introduction (Ya'aqov Ziso)
4) Etymology (Avi Jacob Hyman)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri Mar 12 16:13:49 1993
From: VBERS@YALEVM 
Subject: A Yiddish Hagode

Sarah Stein asks about a Yiddish, possibly
socialist-leaning Hagode. The Workmen's Circle published
such a thing in 1991, "A nayeh Hagode shel peysakh." The
introduction reads: "The original edition of this Hagode
was prepared by a committee of Yiddish writers and
teachers. It was later revised by Joseph Mlotek, Director
Emeritus of the Education Department. The new edition of
this Hagode was prepared by the Department of Schools,
Naomi Kadar, Director, in association with the Department
of Education and Culture, Chava Lapin Reich, Director." The
material, much of it translated or at least paraphrased,
has little to offend the apikorsim. The last item, a
version of Dayenu by I. J. Schwartz, mentions shabes and
toyre, but not der Tetragrammaton.

The Workmen's Circle address: 45 East 33rd St., New York,
NY 10016

Victor Bers

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri Mar 12 17:00:38 1993
From: SBENJ@Athena.MIT.EDU,
Subject: Yiddish Hagodas


I have a little Yiddish hagadah published by Arbeitering in
1967 and I believe one can still get it from them
(Workman's Circle).  It is a bit unfulfilling as a hagadah
precisely because it it "secular." So I imagine this may be
the one Sarah was referring to.  It does have the Yiddish
versions of all the standard seder hits and a number of
songs that I am not familiar with (e.g. Seder Nakht, Lomir
Heybn Dem Bekher).  It is rally just a comilation of songs,
sans brochos... We have used it as a supplement at our
seders before, but we so seldom have Yiddish speaking seder
guests that I miss really being able to kick up our heels
and farbreng as we do with the Hebrew seder melodies.

Sheldon Benjamin

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue Feb 23 19:07:12 1993
From ZISO@zodiac.rutgers.edu
Subject: Introduction

My name is Ya'aqov Ziso, and work presently as the Catalog
Librarian at is Rutgers University Libraries. Before this,
I worked as Judaica/Hebraica Cataloger at Northwestern
University. I am interested in the cataloging of materials
in Yiddish (we just got here a gift of 500 novels in
Yiddish). I am not speaking about institutions like YIVO in
NYC, but many others where there are materials and no adept
people to describe and analyze properly these materials. I
would like to know more about the current interest in
Yiddish publications as reflected by teaching, collection
development, and processing at academic research
institutions, public and synagogue libraries. At the
present time, the bibliographic copntrol of Yiddish
materials is lacking. My outlook is quite grim. Maybe just
the moment for a good Jewish sense of humor, and (if we
strike oil) some new programs too.

Ya'aqov

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon Mar 15 11:12:43 1993
From: AJHYMAN@UTOROISE
Subject: Humpike

This is a question from: Dr. Leslie Train, Department of
Germanic Languages and Literature University of Toronto,
Canada   (he has no modem, so I'm forwarding it)

Does anyone know anything about the Yiddish word HUMPIKE
(pron: Hump - i -ke)? It was found in a +20Century book and
it may mean some kind of low-lying bush wi th berries.

The etymology may be from Polish/Romanain/Ukrainian/Slavonic.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Please forward responses to either Mendele or
Avi Jacob Hyman
AJHYMAN@UTorOISE.bitnet

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End of Mendele Vol 2.158